Burnt Sugar

The way I want you is not

the way I want everyone else.

I want you like I can’t have you

like I need you

in ways I couldn’t logically want because

they cut

too swift too deep—

painless at first, then throbbing

with lingering injury.

Baby, injure me.

Break me apart,

I trust you to put me back

together

with your practice stitches

and your neurosurgery videos set to Mozart

measured like notes, like time

with you,

like endless, like

finite stretching into infinite.

Sugar you blaze through me but

I’m never burned out.

Instead I caramelize;

I melt

from

hard

into

soft, sticky, yielding to your heat.

Bring me to boiling

baby

scald me

and leave sugar scars

that I can trace and taste

when I miss your sweetness,

when I miss eating chocolate till we’re nauseous,

and waking up to one drop of you lingering on your lips—

honey.

Coat the back of my throat so

I can sing to you some more,

country or jazz or indie or Arabic lullabies

that put you to sleep

next to me even when we’re hours apart

when you part for me, vulnerable like sunflowers

on my shady windowsill

tilted towards the other side

tilted towards

tilt

on an axis

of crocus flowers in the sun

strands of saffron ready to harvest

smelling of the earth on fire, earth

damp and hot and alive

even in heavy summer air

waiting to break into a storm;

alive in drunken stupors sobered with kisses;

alive in sweltering restaurants

where the bland food tastes divine because

you placed it in my mouth;

alive like the curls at the nape of your neck;

alive like flames eating me alive

when I look at your face.